May 12, 2014

Led by Purdue University and partnered with Vincennes University and Ivy Tech Community College, IN-MaC works to attract, retain and grow high-value manufacturing industries in Indiana.

The Technology Adoption Program was IN-MaC's first initiative. IN-MaC also has education and workforce development programs underway with Ivy Tech, Vincennes and Purdue Calumet. In addition, research programs have been started in three areas: digital manufacturing enterprise, personalization, and market viable manufacturing processes.

Projects chosen for the Technology Adoption Program concentrate on digital engineering for production design, product lifecycle management, or production systems modeling and design.

Among the 15 companies that signed on with the program, seven projects are in production systems modeling and design, five are in digital engineering and three are in product lifecycle management. Four of the companies have completed their projects.

"IN-MaC's goal is to help Indiana companies grow, both in adding employees and in being able to compete nationally and globally," said William Gulley, manager of IN-MaC's Technology Adoption Program. "Making use of the latest technology available is vital to helping companies meet this goal."

One of the first companies that signed on with IN-MaC was Jeco Plastic Products of Plainfield.

"IN-MaC provided us with technological tools of which we formerly knew nothing," said CEO Craig S. Carson. "As a result of our collaboration with Purdue through IN-MaC, we developed completely novel improvements on existing process technology."

Carson said an immediate result of IN-MaC support was an initial order of more than $110,000 in tooling and $150,000 in parts that had been outsourced to China.

"The growth prospects within 12 months are for three to five times that amount," he said.

Another company working with IN-MaC is Precise Mold and Plate of Columbus.

"While not yet halfway through our change process, we already are seeing dramatic results," said CEO Don Dumoulin. "When combined with other projects, our IN-Mac work set has helped build our overall capacity as evident by our first-quarter revenue being up over 50 percent versus last year.

"We are big believers in the power of IN-MaC and our team from Purdue."

Gulley said the companies working with IN-MaC so far have ranged from 20 to 10,000 employees.